


Dead Embers

by AllHailProHeroThirteen04102016



Category: No Fandom, Original Work
Genre: Gen, It's Pretty Gay and Pretty Tragic, Poetry, Pseudo-Diary Entries, Sexism, Skip to Chapter Five for something lengthy, Time Period Typical Racism, Time Travel, and homophobia, mention of infidelity
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-18
Updated: 2020-01-09
Packaged: 2020-11-02 08:24:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 10,680
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20683088
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AllHailProHeroThirteen04102016/pseuds/AllHailProHeroThirteen04102016
Summary: Alternative Title: Old writings I never finished or little drabbles I won't continue.





	1. Friendship!

"Listened to a song called Blue

Found a song fic too

So I had this idea

That might get me sued."

Red and Blue

I was red and you were blue

I adored you and you loved me too

And then you touched me, made me something new

Your smiles, your hugs and little sighs

All tainted me purple like lilac skies

But then you said lavender skies weren't for you

And then you're gone before I knew what to do

I try to get rid of parts of you

The filth<strike> the betrayal</strike> that ruined me to a new hue

<strike>(Skin dripping with efforts null</strike>

<strike>Mottled with apologies long overdue)</strike>

Just more bruises blooming anew

With the same colors you left me with

Red, blue, purple hue

Before I knew it, years had passed

Bonds were formed, old dreams dashed

Then we meet, both new different people

You had changed colors, like my new purple

I never noticed how I left you

A part of me, like a part of you

Your lungs coated in my dust

And my steel heart in your rust

(Your coughs remind you of my pain

And my creaks of steel of your disdain)

We talk and soon, broken promises are renewed

(We sigh, admitting we both want to try)

Between two people who had changed too much

Now too old to be the same old such

You cough and laugh and I knew it was true

That we are friends once more

Like when I was red and you were blue.

<strike>(Author's Note: Took skme lyrics out of the song, except I made it about friendships eyyyy.)</strike>


	2. Arachne

My dearest who lives in Hell  
Let not these earthen barriers separate us as well  
When those merchants' cries are quelled  
In my hands, their silk that selled  
I'll create a Spider's Thread  
And I'll bring you back to earth, like I said  
So my darling, come to bed  
And your beloved Spider will put those nightmares to rest

\--Message from seamstress wife to her soldier husband who got back from the war.


	3. Infatuation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An old experience.

I suppose I have always been a funny girl.

When I was younger many would call me cute. Kind. Always too selfless or maybe too selfish, they never made up their mind. A little stupid as well, even when I didn't feel like it. That must have been my childish pride refusing to let me see my own flaws.

Well, I'm certainly feeling the stupidity right now.

"Mary, you're staring into space again." Warm brown eyes twinkle, amused. "Thought of a story?"

<strike>_That's a beautiful smile you have there._</strike> I pursed my lips, ignoring the sound of my thundering heartbeat. "Maybe. Plot for a fanfic?"

"Fanfics are for losers and creeps."

My enthusiasm wasn't dampened in the slightest. Neither was my heart any calmer.

"You're just not a fan of any shows or books." A travesty it was.

"Or you're just weird."

"You mean wonderful?" She rolled her eyes before grinning.

"Sure. Just stay your weird, _wonderful_ self."

My cheeks are starting to hurt. _Yep, I love her._

I was stupid because I loved a girl.

It wasn't a big realization, it was just me learning a lot about Jenna over the years until I had absentmindedly thought I love her.

But it was weird. I'm not a tomboy. I don't want to act like a guy nor do I want to be one. I don't want to cut my hair and wear guy clothes. I just want to be me, liking my sister's dresses and leather jackets and picking flowers and watching romantic fairy tales between a prince and a princess with envy.

Now I'm wondering if I had been jealous of the princess or the _prince_.  
I'm not a tomboy. But I still like a girl.

I'm not gay? I like boys when they're not stupid or pushing me away from their fun games just because I was a girl.

(Or maybe that was my fault: we were wrestling this one time and my teacher pulled me off the boy I was trying to pin and scolded us. It was kind of unfair when it was just them they weren't scolded.)

But now I like girls. From what I know, you can only like one, so does that mean I'm now gay?

That...conclusion doesn't feel right.

Mommy and Daddy will be disappointed in me.

I don't just like girls, I might like boys too, but clearly I like girls more. But I don't want to be a boy either, because only those who are boys or think like boys can like girls, and I feel more like a girl who likes a girl.

I'm "wrong."

I'm a weirdo.

But that's okay. Maybe.

Family might not talk a lot about my cousin who's gay and had adopted a kid ("Poor kid," "He's gonna grow up in an unhealthy environment.") but they didn't kick him out and leave him for dead like other families. If they won't accept me, they'll still keep me.

I'm a weirdo.

But I'm also raised to be brave. I won't run, I'll confront my problems and accept the consequences. If I can't stop being a disappointment to my family, I won't let me be a disappointment to myself.

I huffed. Pep talk!

Now to actually pull it off.

I confessed.

Screamed an "I LIKE YOU, JENNA!" while presenting a big bouquet of real(!) roses. I made sure every flower smelled nice and that none of them got wrinkled or something. She liked red roses, and I wouldn't let her have any less.

Jenna screamed at me and stomped on my flowers.

(My first heartbreak.)

I may have cried myself ugly that night.

  
The next day my classmates are looking at me all weird. Some were furiously whispering or just staring at me as if they were trying to figure me out. Or just looked flat out disgusted with me.

  
"Is it true that you're gay?"

  
Even I'm not sure about that, you know?

  
"No." If all the girls I'll like react like that, I won't try liking them. So I'm not gonna try being gay. I _learned_.

  
"But Jenna said you confessed to her. And she rejected you."

She

She told everyone?

The stares of disgust intensified.

The memory and the weight of the stares made me burst into tears.

"I DON'T LIKE HER LIKE THAT!" I wailed. They looked taken aback. "I ONLY WANTED TO GIVE HER FLOWERS BUT THEN SHE SCREAMED AT ME AND STOMPED ON THEM!" I lied.

Some of them looked at the now tensed Jenna. _Did you lie? Did you? Did you lie?_

"But flowers," they said.

I sniffed. "I gave you chocolates. Does that mean I have a crush on you?" Then tears started falling even faster. "Does that mean you should step on it in front of me? Call me _names_?"

Jenna was trying to defend herself. But in the face of lying to everyone about that nice, quiet kid who might have been a little weird but had always given everyone some snacks whether they were hungry or not and was nice enough to help them when they were having a hard time at Math...

Jenna was immediately hated.

I knew I had lost a friend in her the moment I confessed.

And now she knew she lost a friend in me the moment she tried to ruin me.

(<strike>We were once each other's best friends.</strike>)

There was no going back.


	4. Diary Entries

Teen angst is something I do not like.

* * *

I blame hormones. Hormones makes a mess of behavior and psych and thought processes.

Maybe it gets worse when you put trauma on top of it.

A friend tells me that something did happen to me, but I cannot remember. They looked confused, relieved and guilty when I told them so.

It was odd how becoming hurt can make new friendships after burning old bridges.

She treats me more carefully now, like glass. Other people do too. But the difference berween them and her is that when people treat you like glass, they are either gentle with you, afraid to create a scratch, much less a crack, or they want to shatter you irrevocably.

We're trying. She's being supportive while I'm trying not to burden her too much. I make her swear to keep whatever happened a secret. She is upset, but understood and respected my wishes. It was a refreshing changed. It's been a while since someone listened to me.

Her hugs are nice. The pressure against my muscle and into bone makes me feel more real, somehow. Less likely to fade away into...somewhere.

But

It doesn't stop me from feeling disgusted when people touch me, especially when it's skin on skin.

My parents and siblings made a loving family, but weren't very _touchy_, least to say, I assumed that it's probably because I got deprived of touch or something. But the disgust was a recent development.

I feel like a confusing mess of touch starved and touch repulsion.

Writing is both fun and stressful. I write what I want, but never have enough time to write all that I want. Today, I had an entire day to type several thousand words. Four thousand to a fanfiction, and more than twenty pages of words that was a stream of consciousness of opinions regarding the political climate, the law and criminology in general and maybe ten pages of those were dedicated to me redefining what I believed to be love and wrote love letters to my family and my dearest.

Everyday I write everything, but I do so rarely post them with that fear clenching around my heart, for the privacy of my thoughts and the paining reality of not everyone willing to appreciate different opinions or of most understanding of a babble, most inane, yet most private thoughts of another face in the crowd.

I once typed on a laptop for several weeks until my hands cramped up. It was a novel's worth of pages filled with my happiness, anger sadness, rising screams and moments of quiet apathy and contemplation. I excitedly tell this to my family, I was hopeful because this was the absolute first time I was able to finish something, but instead of being encouraging they merely say that what I do is not worth anything if I cannot profit.

Not a single word of it was published.

Today, I do feel encouraged. I feel as though I should challenge myself to writing everyday, no matter how little or how much I would spill into documents and pages.

I'm considering trying out the Inktober. Use my abysmal art skills and finally try for myself and without catering my art to some faceless audience.

My heart and mind are at constant war, but that is simply how life goes. There are moments of peace and conflict, man is never satisfied with peace, and with change there shall be conflict, and at the end of the conflict there will be peace among the debris and dying embers of what was fought. Like life, like man, like love.

They all strive for happiness and satisfaction, and we do rarely find them so. And so rare they are, they do not last long. Or they do, and we merely take them for granted until we are left still yearning for that honeyed aftertaste that quenched an unnoticed thirst.

I do wonder why we always yearn or want something. I do not know if it is because man is greedy, always wanting more, or if man is incomplete and trying to find something that will fill up that gaping hole that would let them find satisfaction in their questionable existence. Religion was born with claims of our gods creating us in their image. Rules were created out of sympathy due to abuse of inevitable inequality. Man created many things for many reasons but all.of them can be traced back down to a desire for something.

I do not know. I merely ponder.

Philosophy was never my strong point, but am fond of.

For now, I blame hormones. And trauma. And whatever circumstances that made me this complex, amalgamation of repulsion and greed.

For now, I'll simply accept the fact that I can no longer accept casual touches, yet yearn to hold them in my arms and shower them in adoration. That I can no longer stand the thoughts of any sort of romantic intimacy but still long for someone to accept my adoration and fondness for them, that I cannot want for them not to be in my life.

For now, I'll try to write what I can and will and want. Flawed or not.

For now, I'll accept being human.

(And maybe I'll eventually learn how to write for myself wholeheartedly without fear of expectation and disappointment.)


	5. Dead Embers (Part 1)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This was an old story from a series of drabbles I typed during class.
> 
> This is part one.
> 
> (Warning: Cringe and borderline Fairy Tale-esque)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Time travelers: These are people whose bodies can handle being a conductor or a producer of an energy called Cronum, a time manipulating energy. It should be impossible for any living being to survive even having an iota of the mentioned energy, much less handle a bunch of it in their bodies consistently. In a timeline where scientists discover their existence, they are still scratching their heads over this; as a result, they are considered as genuine, living anomalies for now.
> 
> The phenomena that it time time travel when the energy in the person's body builds up and bursts, temprarily displacing them in time. Of course, they will return back to their time in no time. The theory about this is the Rubber Band Theory: The farther away they are from the timeline, the more Cronum needed, and the longer they stay there.
> 
> Sarah Trinidad belings to a timeline different from ours: it's still the 21st century, yet it's different due to a series of different decisions and consequences compared to ours. Sarah can only go back in time in one direction: backwards. Her friend Aaron can jump in between different timelines unlike her who is stuck to one.

"Oh, Nymph, how many heartbreaks has that searching gaze brought?"

Sarah gave her a wry smile. "Maybe it should be my heartbreaks you should be inquiring about, Princess."

"Have you ever thought that it may have been mutual?" Her words were casual, but prodding at sore spots.

She doubts it. "A little."

"Ah, you're being self-centered again."

"But aren't every fae?"

For a brief moment, the dark-skinned girl's eyes glowed and the cotton at her fingertips dripped decay.

That was more than enough to remind Elizabeth that she was dealing with a creature than a real human, even with all their baffling moments of humanity. Even with their mutual adoration, that would always be something that would put them at odds with the other.

(For Elizabeth, it was her xenophobia.

For Sarah, it was her lies.)

Sarah wasn't a fae.

Sarah Trinidad was just like any other _human_ girl in the old colonial countries. The Spanish had just stopped...caring about the Philippines when their wars with the British Empire got a little too brutal so they were left picking up the pieces.

Maybe in another timeline, another universe, the American Revolution was successful and wasn't another stretched out war over the century, maybe in another universe Queen Jane didn't leave her barely stable kingdom vulnerable to other influences and eventual invasion.

Sarah was a human.

A human who just happened to travel through time randomly.

She wouldn't know it yet, but she can only travel to different points in history before the divergence into different presents that would seem to be different _worlds _compared to her own.

One day, she'll meet another time traveler like her but unlike her, they can't travel backwards but only forwards and sidewards; they'd see the difference of different worlds thanks to the slightest change of some sort of factor and decision.

They'd see the timelines _she_ had graced her presence.

That person was Aaron, _just Aaron, my other names can be distasteful_, and Sarah greets her proclamation of being a time traveler with childish tears.

They meet when she was twelve and Aaron was twenty-seven.

Sarah started time traveling when she was nine.

Any time she had tried to confide in anyone was met with _you're being weird, you crazy girl, you have an active imagination_ and the like.

As such she can't really share her stories. So she started telling them to those she met on her "travels."

_Hello, I'm Sarah Trinidad. I guess you could say that I'm well travelled. _She would jest.

None of them understood modern English or even the inkling of Spanish that was left in the Filipino language like an aftertaste of rain.

The time travelling thing wasn't very frequent. There would be this strange feeling of something building up, the progress would be practically imperceptible and she would only realize its progression when it's getting harder to breathe and it feels as though she's going to burst.

It's during the bursting part that she suddenly time travels.

Aaron explains to her that it's an energy that people like them are producing. Anyone is a medium for the energy, but can't produce them and _use _them. They were exceptions, anomalies in the human population.

_If there are infinite worlds and infinite possibilities, there are infinite of us. We just haven't met the others yet._

Ten years old and she was rapidly learning how to communicate with someone through gestures.

Ten years old, games are universal. But one boy tries to teach her archery. He was kind with green eyes and blonde hair, the kind that she'd see only in cartoons and picture books and maybe movies but never in person. His skin looked like it was lightly dusted in cinnamon, but then he'd smile, and the only thing she could compare him to was the sun except do suns have spots?

She searches the net. They do.

She didn't know what freckles were at the time so she calls them sunspots.

Sarah got front row seats to watching the boy grow up. He was lanky, puberty gave give long, gangly limbs but adulthood lets him grow into a height that befits a fairytale prince in her mind.

He bore a crown of leaves and he was beaming when he saw her. They babble mutually incomprehensible things to each other, laughing and their skins flushed under the afternoon sun.

The last activity they do together was riding a horse. He shows off his archery, laughing at her horrified stare as eagles and sparrows fall from the skies then his laughter chokes off as an arrow from beyond the trees pierce through his throat. She doesn't see it, but she felt the hot spray of blood dripping through the back of her head and it was only confirmed when she gets back and she takes a shower and there was a swirling crimson in the drain.

The only thing in her hair that wasn't blood was leaves of trees that weren't native or don't grow in her country.

Aaron explained to her that it was possible that the people she meets become her tethers. When they die, she can no longer visit that time when they were alive.

It was kind of a rule that nobody can be in the same world/timeline at the same time as another them.

She has many stories, many people met. So far they're all pleasant people.

She makes the mistake of trusting one pleasant looking noble.

Eleven years old. She has nobody to confide to or to spill her regrets and anger and fear of rooms of gold, clear blue skies and the afternoon sun spilling through glass panes of the roof and onto the man's form and the sheets pooled around them.

Blood dripped between her legs and she lies to her sister, saying that she got her period for the first time.

Writing stories in the internet was her only way of...confessing anything. She writes in diary entries; she was writing only for the first time and she didn't have the heart to write copious amounts of paragraphs.

She receives little readers, as she should.

On the diary entry on the rape, she didn't bother sugarcoating. The deaths was written in euphemism; her suffering? No. She was intent on conveying her pain as much as possible even with her pathetic lexicon.

That chapter was visceral in the experience. She started putting warnings.

She receives many comments and private messages concerning her health.

She does not try chatting with them. The gesture alone touched her and it was tempting to talk to someone but... Sarah has been sheltered for too long and paid the price for it. That was it.

It was her fault. 

And like what her mother says, if it was your fault you got hurt in the first place, you have no right to be upset.

She didn't need to burden anyone with her silly whines.

It was just a little pain.

That chapter was now starting to seem a little silly, but seeing the sudden spike of response, she doesn't delete or edit it. Such well reception, she must have done something right.

The chapters after that are tainted in her self-disdain.

But she still has fun playing with future friends but that was it.

Nobody still speaks her language. Maybe Old English or Middle English but she never stays long enough to truly learn them.

Thirteen years old. She lands smack right in the middle of a war.

There were no guns or cannons, but there were catapults and swords. The boy she had played playmate with was leading a squadron.

Her entrance was as ungraceful as her person, which would make the following happenstance not too surprising.

Their eyes connect and his eyes widen before a thrown dagger pierces one of his bright blue eyes. She gapes across the battlefield before something slid right through her ribs.

She returns to her time. In the present, it was dark, she was in her room and frantically removing the slim sword from her torso and pressing her hand against the wound.

_I don't want to die I don't want to **there's a million things I haven't seen **_**they'll all be upset if I die _don't_**_ take me away from **them **_

Thirteen years old. She learns how to manipulate the energy to reverse her time.

Fourteen years old. She started pretending to be a woodland creature ever since an incident with an Scottish man became frightened of her when she was feeling too emotional and forced plants around her to grow too rapidly. She later finds a tether in a songstress and dancer and she teacher her how to move gracefully.

She was successful. Sarah was moved. 

Fifteen year old. Sarah Trinidad moves less like a human and more of a Gaelic fae. She thinks about becoming a dancer.

The next person she meets was a princess. It was that meeting that led her to realize that blue bloods weren't spared from human falacies, especially when she saw familiar finger-shaped bruises on young Elizabeth's arm, and later during a bath, her legs and hips.

A month before she turned sixteen, she dances for Elizabeth and sees her cold blue eyes trailing over the curve of her body.

Sixteen. She has admitted to herself her odd nature of her own sexuality when Elizabeth becomes bold enough to ask for permission for a kiss. And she doesn't say anything, only looking deep in her Princess' eyes and smiling.

It wasn't a no.

She encouraged Elizabeth to find a husband to support her in raising an unstable kingdom. Elizabeth argues that a marriage will only encourage even _more _instability, then Sarah suggests a common man. An emperor of the night, if only to bear heirs without pain of power struggles.

That same night, they confess to each other's true affection for the other.

The next time they meet, the emperor of the night was executed for treason and Elizabeth has three children but Sarah still kisses her deeply as the Queen (her Princess still, _hers_) as the woman of twenty-three slid a ring onto her finger.

Meeting Elizabeth was an confusing memory, but also one that greatly amused her now that she's looking back at it.

During the first times she ended up at the castle, she had the liberty to go around and marvel at the structures and what perhaps maybe for their era were display of wealth. As much as she is a culture-ignorant girl, observing the changes of culture over time has always been a fascinating thing to do. If she were to try her hand at analogy, she could compare this to a person new to painting watching a sped-up video of an oil painting's progression, so she'll call foul at whomever would try to find fault in her hobby. Elizabeth would later confess to her that at each visit she has always been present, only that she'd hide in order to observe the unearthly interloper.

It does explain why their first meeting involved Sarah studying an extremely old tapestry presumably of Celtic origins and found a young girl being the cause of the slightest hint of a tent in it.

Before Sarah could even have a chance to be surprised, the young girl makes an odd noise and threw a pot at her head. To be honest, the time traveler was surprised that it took this long for there to be such first meeting; there have been times when she had unintentionally intruded upon another's home and they proved to be courteous or, at the very least, diplomatic even with the undertone of discourtesy.

You can tell that the past seven years has been an interesting time for her.

Anyway, Elizabeth was perhaps the first child to force Sarah to reverse her time on her body in order to avoid the inevitable (for anyone else) growth of a knot on her head. That would have been unsightly had she not been quick to think despite her concussion.

The princess has a good arm.

Sarah doesn't see the child for three visits. She's curious on who the child was, if memory served her right, in her gowns and small jewelries she may be a relative of the royals. But curiosity doesn't deter her from wandering about in the garden when the gardeners have taken their breaks and wading her feet through their little pool of lilies was a good experience. It was an even better experience when she pushed out a small amount of Chronum to force several flowers to grow. She feels like a proper dryad this way.

The next time they meet was when Elizabeth finally talks to her. Her native language sounded vaguely romantic, but Sarah didn't have the luxury of learning any kind of language other than the non-verbal ones. It was evident that Elizabeth was frustrated by this, but also because she knew multiple other languages that Sarah recognized as French and German thanks to her earlier visits and internet. 

Elizabeth was eight, closer to nine, had a friz of red hair that looked like blood in the dark and orange in the splatters of sunlight. Her eyes were a clear sky blue on the verge of dusk and her features odd. Europeans as children always looked odd to her. She talked timidly at first, but was shamelessly talkative upon discovery of the time traveler's smattering of language.

"_Nimfa?_" She says, in an inquiring tone.

Sarah points at herself, questioning. The girl nods. Sarah grins and nods, internally questioning how on earth she got to that conclusion. The young girl makes an expression that says, _I knew it!_ Sarah can't help but laugh. The child was too cute to be real. She laughingly introduces herself, "Sarah!"

The little girl does the timid equivalent of puffing out her chest and thumping it. Except it's a polite bow. If that makes any sense. _"Tsesarevna Yelisaveta."_

Sarah frowns. "Tsesar-vna Ye-li-sa-ve-ta?" She tries.

She blinks up at the nymph with her blue eyes. Sarah quickly says, "Elizabeth! I'll call you Elizabeth instead."

The now dubbed Elizabeth did not mind, even if she seemed a little perturbed at the lack of decision on her part. Sarah did not care.

Sarah does not count the times she plays with Elizabeth. She fears that if she did, she would have also counted how many times Elizabeth greeted her with injuries or bandages under her dress.

This wouldn't be the first time that she has found a tether in an abused child. It's a surprising norm for her at this point, but she hasn't learned much tact even then. She always did her best advising the children on getting help, and her insistence worsened after a witnessing a handful of young deaths on the hands of their worsening condition, parent or their own.

But when their own abuser was powerful enough for everyone to turn a blind eye to when they raise their hand on their own children?

Elizabeth was the _princess_, she thought, incensed. Not only that, but _crown princess_ if Google was to be trusted. If she tries to reach out, instead of seeing a child in need, most will see a golden opportunity to having good favor of the Crown and future Empress.

The best Sarah could do was bring snacks at every chance and reverse the girl's injuries. The sense of powerlessness is downright _infuriating_, but Elizabeth's smile was a balm to it. Elizabeth tries to teach her as many games as possible, and shows off the little amount of wealth she possessed like the jewelry boxes. Her adoration for all gold things was endearing, even moreso when she tries to gift the "nymph" a gold bracelet studded in fat gems in a tasteful fashion. Instead, Sarah requests for bags of seeds, pretending that it was an item she desires selfishly when in fact was a way of distracting the girl with her fascination of her power over nature.

Sarah understands her awe of seeing her rose seeds suddenly sprout, grow a bud and bloom before her very eyes. It was such an amazing thing to witness, which is why Sarah practiced so much on this unearthly party trick in the first place.

(Though this might have been reason as to how Elizabeth turned a section of the garden into a reliquary in her later years.)

Before she left, Elizabeth took it upon herself to cut the largest, blooming rose's stem and give it to Sarah. The sentiment touched her; the rose seeds she was provided with revealed thornless, blood red roses with big, fat petals. This small bag of seeds would have taken decades or even _centuries_ of careful breeding without the gene splicing technology of the modern world.

By their next visit, Sarah has used enough Kronos to keep the rose in its fresh bloom, leaves and soft petals free from previously present crescent-shaped bruises, its stem where it was cut it yet to dry...she was really, really careful with it. She can't really claim it so when she was carelessly spinning it about in through her fingers.

Then Elizabeth walked into her line of sight and she promptly dropped the poor flower.

Europeans always looked weird as children, but as they age they grow into their features. She _knows_ that. Hell, her most common metaphor for every single person she met is compared with the flowers she forces to grow into maturity past their time; she gets to witness them grow up fast-forwarded. Did so many, many times for the past seven years.

Yet, her little _tsesarevna_ somehow surprises her.

The moment she saw her, she could understand the phrase '_cold shock of beauty_' because she was sure that it was impossible for humans to become that pretty. Sarah has seen all kinds of beauty, both in men and women, but Elizabeth her own class altogether.

"I told you short hair suits you better, _prinsesa._" she blurted. Elizabeth blinks, her blue eyes having gotten misty with nostalgia and unshed tears, then

says something that sounded vaguely Middle English.

Sarah cradles her face in her hands as she groaned. Elizabeth looked sufficiently frustrated as well; she had to lower herself to entertaining an arrogant, aggravating British envoy in order to get access to his translator and be tutored in a language just because it sounded like the nymph's, yet--!

No, it's not the end yet. It _is _a similar language. This is a big step forward in understanding the other, in having proper _verbal_ communication.

After three hours, there was a conclusion: it _is_ the same language. The words for many objects are either exactly the same or sounded similar enough, though some slangs are unfamiliar and have to be explained, the difference is that the nymph's way of speaking prioritized efficiency above fluency. Their verbal communication will be a little rocky, but it shall suffice.

It was a victory.

A kind of victory equivalent to turning a rescue mission into a military strategic victory.

_"My, princess, you've grown to be more beautiful than this rose!"_

Elizabeth tries hard to ignore how her words lit something within her she thought was long gone and long forgotten. It was thought to be a childish fancy, a whimsical fascination to someone tender with her under no obligations but...

_"Won't you stay?"_

Years without such treatment has left her hot and dry and ready to ignite at the slightest spark.

It was presumptuous to dismiss her emotions and memories regarding the nymph as nothing more than her imagination.

(She has always been a freak, an abnormal child compared to her other sister, her mother accusing her to be a changeling, hence her hesitance and the fear she felt when she first saw the nymph arrive at the castle in robes reminiscent of Greecian plays. But there was hope in it as well; what if she was her mother? Will this creature provide her with the same maternal affections she was deprived of while baby Mary was showered in? Or will it be another monster in human skin that sought to use her as their tool?

The language barrier had been a relief then. No way of manipulating her through words, but it also meant that she has any means to know her true motives.

Then they grew closer, her suspicions dissolving in the face of her sincere actions and not-so-subtle efforts borne of genuine worry, the tender but no-nonsense treatment in regards to Elizabeth's conditions...

She was not aware of how far her affection grew until she stopped visiting.)

It had hurt when she didn't return for too long, and the explanation of the laws amongst nymphs didn't balm the burns the one-sided passion caused, but the reassurance that Sarah deeply regretted that and wanted to visit her more...

Elizabeth fears that this will evolve to an inferno that will consume both parties involved.

They were lying in bed together and talking about anything and everything.

"Religion is a political tool, not real faith."

Sarah snorted, "Really. That's just your view because you're a politician."

Elizabeth was giving her an interested look. "As a creature of nature, do you know that truth of religion? _Is_ there a god?"

"As a creature of nature, do you really believe that I'll tell you if I do?"

"Fair. But it may end many conflicts amongst the Churches. There are many denominations now."

_And many more in the future_, the time traveler thought. Instead, she says, "I am not obligated to reveal anything, yet I am not obligated to hide any." Elizabeth appeared to perk up in attention. "Depending on my response, when I return I shall have my existence obliterated to oblivion."

The woman of eighteen summer solstices visibly slumps. "Then stay here and ruin the people's faith in the supernatural with me."

_Stay with me._

"I wish I could."

Elizabeth had to get over her conservative ideals before she went _hell with this _and asked her permission for a kiss.

Sarah was enthusiastic and agreed, expecting a chaste kiss.

The results of their first kiss was not as chaste as you'd think, but on the bright side she learns that Elizabeth can show off her reputation for being a quick learner and her famed eloquence non-verbally as long as Sarah is willing to get over her shyness and hitch her skirt up and spread her legs.

The end result was some overgrown potted plants, a flustered Sarah, a smug Elizabeth and a few rumors of Elizabeth having a lover skilled enough to make her cries be heard past a few rooms.

Both are all too aware of how flimsy a promise could be, especially when it involved the permanence of a companionship. No matter how many times Elizabeth may sink her nails in her flesh or kiss her senseless, the reality wouldn't go away, the sense of finality has already been etched deep into her bones and the only thing that prevents Sarah from indulging in the dark pools of premature mourning is experience.

"Will you truly not be able to?" Graceful fingers, callused with thousands of hours of writing, glide over her cheek. "You've made water disappear and appear out of thin air, had my gardens thrive with your mere presence and took a life with barely a flick of your finger. If I were religious, I would say that you are God." Her lips brushes against hers as she spoke. The hand cradling her cheek slides down to her neck to press a thumb at her rapid pulse. "Yet, even if you aren't I'm already worshiping you, am I not?" Sarah shivered. Somehow her actions are seeming less of a lover and more becoming of a predator and Sarah does _not _find any pleasure out of it.

"Will you truly not stay?"_ For me?_

Her tone was demanding, ordering her to concede to an unrealistic desire and her clear blue eyes twinkle with a sad, knowing shine, but still, she implores for a different answer.

Sarah removes her hand and pushes her away, gently. "Elizabeth, insanity is doing something over and over believing that it may give birth to a different result. Don't give material to baseless rumors of your court."

Yet, despite the fear being injected into her veins from a learned intimidation, she remains steadfast. Pity cannot sway her in this subject; she was not as cruel as Elizabeth may want her to be.

"The Probability Theory proves otherwise. I'm not mad, I'm simply a mathematician." She jests. "Love, say a lie enough times and you'll start to believe it to be the truth. Did you not teach me the psychological theories behind that?"

"Don't use the knives I provided you with to hurt me. Ask the same questions many times and you shall receive the same answer." Sarah was practically snarling, her poise defensive in contrast to Elizabeth's deceptively diplomatic one. The look in her eyes are too sharp to have truly given up.

Something told her that should she admit defeat, she may break.

"So no matter how many times I take you," she says softly. "I'll never truly have you?"

"You already have me, princess." Sarah reaches out to hold her hand. The woman's hands are cold, shaking in either fury or an inner pain both are familiar with. Yet she allows them to be held. "I don't believe that you see it yet."

"It's Queen to you, nymph." Her smile was humorless. "No, I know that I have you in many ways."

"Then what has upset you?" Sarah asks, confused and frustrated.

Elizabeth wore a self-deprecating smile.

"You're not mine in the way I want."

Perhaps that should have been the big, red flag.

Sarah knows with confidence that her sentiments were shared, reciprocated with a ferocious kind of enthusiasm that half-scared her at a time.

Elizabeth was not talking about love.

Elizabeth becomes incensed with her when she tries to suggest that she should marry someone. Being a lone ruler is harsh with an empire as large as hers, she insists.

_Don't act as though you'll remain devoted to me 'till the end of your days. Eventually you'll outgrow me and soon need someone of equal maturity and in-_

Slam.

_You claim that you love me and trust me wholly, yet you doubt how much I- _Sarah has never seen her face this red and honest in her anger. _I'm never going to let you go. Ever. I swear on the Crown._

Sarah could only give her a shocked look before nodding.

Elizabeth still held an adoration for gold. As a show of love, Sarah gets at least one piece of it in each visit; which led to buying a box with a lock to ensure no one will steal it.

Sarah didn't want to feel as though she was mooching off her princess, so the next visit she gifts Elizabeth with her pearl earrings.

The woman was too happy.

_It was an odd feeling._

_Epiphany, that is._

_I fear that if I there was a way for me to stay there indefinitely, she would have found a way and have had me locked up in some part of her palace like a pet._

_Her love isn't quiet healthy, but then again, neither is mine._

Elizabeth was not talking about love.

_The third time Elizabeth saw her face-to-face, only then it occurred to her how she looked like. Her hair was platinum blonde like the silken ears of corn or the lemon cakes she'd steal from the kitchen, soft and shiny. Her skin was dark, too dark to be dismissed as a simple tan, but unblemished and soft which spoke of someone who could afford being well-cared for. She was all soft and curves and radiated health and happiness of a loved daughter._

_When she grins, it's too mischievous and secretive, and her teeth are whiter than any slave from the continents from the west should have. She moves to fluidly, inhumane, like a Gaelic fae._

_Her features speak of a mix breed, an abomination. Like how certain studies have cited that children of mix breed will be sterile, bereft of the ability to create life, a privilege and honor that God blessed women with. She is everything that everyone claims to be ashamed of, yet she walks like she's everything someone will love or envy for wrong reasons._

_Elizabeth should be disgusted._

_Yet, when she smiles softly, an expression reserved for her alone, her heart beats with adoration. It worsens with the friendship, worsens when she was indulged when she never was, to be showered with love, love, love when she was thought unworthy of, worsens when she notices her efforts in balming her deserved suffering. And it continued to beat and brag of her newfound affection into adulthood._

_Elizabeth finds a new kind of beauty and love._

_Self-hatred swam in her chest but was smothered by the pooling sunshine that reaches her veins and leaves her warm and satisfied in ways she did not know was possible._

_Elizabeth should have found love in broad shoulders, thick arms and strong lips, but it reminds her too much of her awful step-father's own build. Not a surprise when her husband is her cousin on his side, but all men just do not catch her attention._

_She will never admit this to her nymph, but she once bought a black slave as she suffered heartbreak after coming to a false conclusion of abandonment. She never planned to buy any, but she looked too much like Sarah for her heart to ignore. It was how she was so well-versed in what women do in bed together, after all._

_After her service she was gifted a small plot of land and a pleasant house. A thanks, an apology, a payment, and also an incentive to stay quiet concerning her Majesty's afflictions._

She was talking about obsession.

At some point, Elizabeth finally acquiesced to her pleas of marrying. One person shouldering the responsibility over an entire empire is obviously exhausting.

Nineteen years old, she marries a man of a neutral house.

_My husband is not satisfied with my honest self. He claims I'm too arrogant and headstrong._

** _Give a man a woman who can conquer the world and he'll be miserable. Go figure._ **

_He didn't read the part of the contract that says that the crowned heir apparent shall inherit my house name._

** _Very sneaky! I'm so proud!_ **

Sarah was only thankful that Elizabeth only put her hickeys at places where it can be hidden. The visit had suddenly happened on her way to school, and if she can't really hide the messy hair, kiss-bitten lips, the rumpled uniform, or the damn post-coitus haze, then she could at least hide the damn love bites and hand-shaped bruises.

Thank goodness that it was January. It's the coldest time of the year, so nobody will look at her weird for wearing her huge, turtleneck jacket.

Her classmate offers her a brush and she accepts to at least fix her messy hair.

Sarah may have been too eager to sit down because she wasn't sure if she can keep standing with her shaking legs; she didn't know that too many orgasms can do that.

But looking at the ring on her finger, she supposes that this would be a natural reaction from making a Queen with barbarous levels of vitality overjoyed.

Spending time with Elizabeth let her learn a lot.

(Look into your eyes and the sky's the limit, cuz I'm helpless)

The young princess and even younger queen was extremely touch-starved, attention starved and affection starved and didn't know much about the difference between lust and love.

Well, she had an idea of it, at least, but from what Sarah understood it's mostly her dear's hatred towards anything concerning men became sexual or beyond platonic. Sarah has some vague suspicions that had quickly evolved to theory when she had realized that her father tripping and dying via head injury on a strategically placed sharp rock was not a coincidence. It didn't seem like a coincidence at all when Elizabeth was entirely all too smug and happy about his death.

Sarah had a theory that the small pot of ash by Thomas' portrait were the missing parts of his corpse. Which were his tongue, teeth, hands, feet, the fat of his belly and ass, as well as his, ah, phallus. Which was an extreme form of lese majeste and an act of unsavory and unholy desecration of a blue blood's corpse, but in Elizabeth's words, you can't ruin a body already tainted with unholy acts against womankind and God.

(The dubious morals of the past was already ruining Sarah's standards of acts of love and acts of insanity and evil. It's one big blur for her by this point.)

Sarah herself had to persuade the woman to accept a husband. She has openly expressed disdain for men with an undertone of concern for the political instability and regression should she do it, but the time traveler has had enough of seeing how stressed she always is. Not even seventeen, but her wise little ginger head was earning more streaks of white with every visit.

The only way her queen shows her love was in bed. Sarah has been initiating almost all non-sexual affectionate intimacies and her queen has been hesitantly, but gradually, been reciprocating it.  
While Elizabeth was learning love, Sarah is learning the politics of logic and emotion in constant war in her body language and in her graceful, aristocratic features.

They would lie in bed, bodies flush with exertion and tangled in sheets of soft cotton and furs, soft murmurs exchanged in whispers even in the uninterrupted privacy of the hour. In the quiet of her chambers, Elizabeth would be relaxed and is free to whisper of her troubles and Sarah would be happy to lend an ear.

Sarah would rub away the tension and lull her to safety and vulnerability. She doesn't say anything when Elizabeth begins to spill her frustrations and anger, she needed to vent.

She would offer her own advice when it concerns the matter of science when it's over though. Elizabeth would be baffled, intrigued and thankful for her words.

"It means more for my kingdom than you would think, love." She sighs. "Your kind must have been studying humanity or human ecology long enough to make such astute deductions. I simply must thank you for sharing your kind's wisdom with I."

"Oh, you flatter me."

"I do not." A sly smile stretches her wine red lips. "Unless it is my desire to bed you."  
She lets out a surprised laugh. "Your Majesty! How naughty!" She giggles, smacking her bare shoulder.

"If my world is accepting of sodomites--I mean, homosexuals, (your words not mine, don't act too delighted, you nymph)-- or may I daresay, bigamy, I would have wed you and crowned you Queen." Elizabeth sighs. "Your wisdom matches my own, covers where I am not as well-versed in. My king is only concerned with heirs and his power with the Church than the well-being of our citizens."

"You're the very personification of noblesse oblige, my queen. But you do not need to let yourself carry the weight of the world alone; you know that royal marriages became required only when the kingdom became too large for a single monarch."

"Will it be too foolish of me to wish it were you?"

"You know it is." Sarah twisted a lock of auburn hair between her fingers. Oily. Perhaps she could introduce her to shampoo? "It makes me burn with jealousy that it is not I who is by your side in ways important of your unique position, but I am also astute enough to admit that I do not have the requisite to be a good leader. Let your husband assist you, love. You are strong, but even the most resilient steel will bend under pressure. I should know." She smirked. "You have praised me for my scientific intellect."

"Oh, you arrogant nymph."

Sarah quickly kissed her cheek. Elizabeth smiled and pulls Sarah into a short kiss that made warmth flow through her entire body. Before it could escalate further, Sarah pulls away and Elizabeth huffs with an annoyance and impatience befitting a monarch. Then time traveler chuckles slightly, her lips brushing against hers.

"I may not be the one by your side, " Sarah starts feeling her vulnerability show now. "But I wish to be the one willing to aid you in your rest or be the one to give you ease when you need. Will you let me, my dearest." That was perhaps the closest thing to a confession she was ever going to admit.

Elizabeth's eyes shone. "If you please."

The next time they meet, Elizabeth was twenty three, already bore three children, and Sarah would see that her body earned the maternal fat and stretch marks to prove it, but Sarah was sixteen with heartache and so, so much love not to care about her own vain ideals of an attractive body when Elizabeth slipped a ring onto her finger.

The ring had a gemstone from her crown.

She didn't think it was possible to feel so much love for someone other than family. Unconditionally. It should feel as wrong as it is, but all she could feel is her own happiness and see it reflected in her beloved's smile.

She gets to play with the royal children.

(It's only that day that it was reaffirmed that her cute queen still wholeheartedly believes that she was a heretic fairy. Goodness.)

The happiness does not last, of course.

It was over the years that Sarah had assumed the role of a "crazy, odd, fairy godmother/aunt" over the children of Elizabeth. Upon the death of her husband, she has been running herself ragged over the several wars and conflicts and treaties and amendments of too many outdated laws like the heresy laws to properly rear her children. At least she had the foresight of finding an honest babysitter in a childhood friend who was now a Duchess.

The said Duchess gives her a stink eye every now and then. Sarah was not the most ladylike even in her time, so her behavior must have been horrifying to compartively traditionalist women like Elizabeth and her peers.

The Duchess also tries to insult her in front of the children. Something about her social standing and also scolding her for deluding royal children to the fantastical lie of Aunt Sarah being some sort of heretical creature from the folktales of Ireland. In easier terms, a fairy.

"Good Ma'am, I advise against souring the children's playtime with bigotry." She scolded. "The Queen will be disappointed."

"Better than letting any more royals getting corrupted by a sodomite." She sneered at Sarah's flinch. "Thought nobody would find out? Had I not known of Elizabeth's inclinations and usual behavior, I would have not known better. I hit right on the head, haven't I?"

Sarah was silent.

She knew of rumors of the rumination in her Queen's abstention. Whether it was because of the domestic abuse or homosexuality, nobody can prove anything. All they could provide was inductive fallacies; evidences that support than prove suspicions and sins.

There was a time when someone walked into a chamber where her Queen had been so bold as to pull her in to kiss her deeply as she wished, but even with rumors flying about, there was no proof because Sarah doesn't exist in the time period, nor do they have any servant whose appearance and origins all point to the warmer climates of East. So that rumor became improbable especially in the face of her purity and devotion to the Church.

But Elizabeth had good friends. Good friends whom she can confide to when her mistress was not there to put an ease to her troubles or to share their silence, friends who care for her regardless of politic.

"I do not care from which pit of heretics you emerged from, just keep your sinning in your tent, not to the court of blue bloods!"

(Righteous fury fueled her words. It spoke of another side of the bigoted, but well-meaninged side of the Duchess she was forced to acknowledge.)

Friends who did not appreciate the heartbreak she was causing to their beloved ruler and friend.

Her lip was curled into a snarl. How unladylike, Sarah thought. "I have discouraged my good friend against pursuing such relations for the sake of her purity, to avoid ruining blue blood with unspeakable sin, to avoid any heartbreaks, yet all this was for naught when you encouraged her against her will, used your friendship against her and with full knowledge of her dire circumstances and her trust of her vulnerabilities with you, you took advantage of her, groomed her for slaughter and ruin."

_So she knows that I have loved Elizabeth more than what was proper for friendship since she was young_. She felt a little numb. _Huh. Go figure._

"Just because Mother spends more time with Sarah doesn't mean you have on g'od auth'rity to be mean!" Young Catherine cried, running to the dumbfounded time traveler and hugging her waist.

The children did not understand. The idea of sodomy was not present nor out of reach of their young minds. Sarah didn't know if she should thank or curse the ingrained heteronormativity of their society.

But she did know she wanted to cry.

So her body did so without her volition.

The children, later in their teen years, may tease and taunt her for needing to be defended by group of children like a litter of pups defending their wounded mother, but it still warms her when it became undeniable that they love her, and love her still even when they could never forgive her when they learned of her true nature of the duchess' words.

She learned to taunt the Duchess.

"My, her Highness is most skilled in words. If only she could use her wit properly, her neutral stance makes it difficult to play to her true strengths."

The Duchess is being That Bitch again.

"You must not know of where her true strengths lie." Her venom started dripping into her words. "Or maybe you do -- you have stated before that when I spread by legs for her Majesty, she demonstrates her eloquence quite well." She glared up at her. "It must have been the French court's influence."

Lilith of York turned red with indignation.

"Oh, and before you march off to complain to the Crown, I advise that you do not aggravate our Queen of mad ravings of, ah, our awful dislike of each other. You'll just be adding another burden with her royals duties, after all." _Good friends and good political connections do not make needless problems._

She was playing with her three children and was baffled to find injuries. Bruises that could only be inflicted by an adult's hand. Sarah reports this Elizabeth repeatedly.

It took her third visit to the children to realize that the cause of their pain was Elizabeth herself. She can't quite fathom that.

But they fight, they scream, and it reaches to a point where Sarah feels threatened to the point of sucked a few years out of her princess.

[When the stress of the ruling made her break down, that was the last time she got to see Elizabeth at her prime.]

When she arrives, she lands on her feet with an unknown grace, a bright smile on her face that was quickly wiped away.

On the scene was a wailing, crying Catherine, fourteen years of age and looking so much like how her mother did. It didn't make her feel any endearment, no, it filled Sarah with unadulterated horror at the sheer familiarity of the scene. Except it wasn't Queen Katrina with her whips or the shadow of the King's belt cutting through the air with a helpless Princess Elizabeth.

It was Queen Elizabeth with knuckles bruised white, holding metal rods (most likely extracted from buckets) that dripped with royal blood that wasn't hers. (It dripped with evidence that royal blood is not blue. That flesh and blood stopped mattering at some point in her beloved.)

"What in the world are you doing?!" She screamed. She smacked the queen, punched her right underneath the chin to addle her brain for a moment long enough to allow Sarah to snatch the torture devices out of her hands and to push the woman onto the floor.

Sarah imagined their final parting with something with sorrow and longing and tears, with both relishing in the other's embrace as long as they could before the time they are borrowing finally drips its final drops. She did not imagine to end it all with calling for one of the maids to bring the poor girl to a more sympathetic sibling then proceed to argue loudly with a woman who had the power to execute her on the accusations of _lese majeste_ alone.

Their fight reaches a crescendo and she sees how the woman's nails ached to retaliate for her hurtful words. Tensions and emotions were running high and they were on the verge of violence.

Not once she was called Nymph.

She imagined that their final moment together would be with their lips dripping with honey from sweet, lingering kisses and longing eyes that yearned for an eternity more, not lips dripping with venom or exchanging accusing, betrayed stares.

"I guess this is goodbye," she bitterly remarks. 

Almost immediately, the fight and blood drains from her princess' face.

"SARAH!"

She leaves before she had the chance to see regret and anguish flash on the Queen's face.

The bedchambers have changed. It has fit to a newer aesthetic, that awful urn was gone, there was a portrait of a monarch in her fourties.

That same monarch was on her deathbed.

"Oh, my dearest," she breathed, eyes filling with tears at the sight of her old queen's person that has succumbed to the ravages of time and the conflicts of the world. Elizabeth smiles, eyes still glimmering with the same old love. Sarah was reminded of her beauty. Of her wise queen's impossible-to-silence conflicts of the heart. Tears threatening to fall, she smiles. "You've age like fine wine."

Her queen smirks. "You still flatter me so, nymph."

Nymph. A nickname that was once derogatory once teen Elizabeth in all her teenage spite kept calling her that had soon evolved into a term of endearment spoken teasingly in bed and longingly whenever the time traveler's time is up.

Nymph, because she had confessed of all her pursued, short-lived intimate affairs in every era she has ever visited. It's a polite way of calling her a whore, really, which made Sarah almost miss those times when her queen was still too young to be a princess or a mother, who only called her either "guardian angel" and "fairy" whenever she visits to either save her from her sadistic foster parents or to simply play with her to provide her a time to feel like a careless child than a helpless victim.

Nymph. A nickname that marked the beginnings of a sharp-tongued, pacifist queen that emerged from the ruined remains of innocence and naivety, and being forced to use her wisdom out of survival first and foremost until she reached the day of her coronation.

"Come closer."

Sarah was quickly at her bedside. She was quick to give a quick peck to the old queen's cheek, and noted with no small amount of fondness that it made the corner of her lip jerk up.

Some things don't change.

"You haven't aged a day." Elizabeth noted, with an assessing gaze that hasn't dulled in half a century. "I am not dead, so this cannot be Heaven. But it is also improbable that you are a holy being with your habit of indulging in sin." Teasing. "Was I right when I assumed you to be of faefolk or as a being of malevolence in my youth?"

Sarah smiled. "On that matter, I am coy." Or I am a Mystery.

"Of course." Her eyes softened. "Regardless, I missed you. Dearly."

For Sarah, it was a month of her reevaluating everything she ever knew and believed about Elizabeth. She had tried to put her ring in a box, claiming that she doesn't care about what happens to it, but she soon sees said box in her sibling's hand, her sister marveling at the beauty of the jewelry, Sarah quickly took it back in a fit of possessive fury.

For Elizabeth, it was half a century resigning herself to the fact that she had driven away a person who truly loved her by being a hypocrite. She started making amends with her children, but it wasn't enough. None of them are even present now.

[For Sarah, it had been a month since they last met, since she held a shaking Queen who trusted her enough to let herself fall apart in her arms and struggled to put her back together under the weight of several wars breaking out upon dawn.

For Elizabeth, it had been decades. Some of her children are dead, she has many grandchildren and none of them are here, too busy duking it out for the throne.

While Sarah spent her days at her world doing her best while directing longing, worrying stares at the ring on her hand, Elizabeth had grown old with full knowledge that her lover may never come back.]

Regardless of her promises, Sarah left her alone.

The guilt threatened to swallow her whole. "Me too," she choked.

She didn't notice that their hands were laced together until her dying beloved squeezed her palm. It was either muscle memory, or separation never truly stopped their bodies from seeking the other out.

She can feel the pair to her ring pressing against the back of her hand. So does Elizabeth.

Her eyes were fluttering closed. "Stay?"

She squeezed her hand back.

"Of course."

_Te amo, Reyna Elizabeth, simper. Numquam te amare desistam._

Elizabeth was another one of the long lines of lovers she had, but holds a special place in her heart for her lifelong devotion to someone whose visits are rare over her lifetime.

Most lovers of time travelers are one-time things, a whirlwind romance destined to burn out quicker, or they'll be regarded as a fond memory when for them the passions that ignited was still fresh in their minds and bodies.

None of them loved her (genuinely) enough to desire marriage.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is mostly my attempt on writing romance. And oldey talks even though I've never even tried to research how English worked then. It's cringey.


	7. June's Sonatas and Elegies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> another random poem

The air rang heavy with the prelude to pain

People gaze at the sky with disdain

Clouds swirled like an orchestra's refrain

Fell from Heaven, were <strike>tears</strike> heavy with pain

Summer is gone and time has halt

The ground now damp with cold and salt

No longer like earth's dry heat of moonsoon's goodbyes

This is the June mourning May's scorched skies


End file.
